


Blueprint of an Enigma

by blackidyll



Series: Traceability [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Bruises, Head Injury, M/M, Slow Build, medical radiography, mission aftermath, phone calls and messages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackidyll/pseuds/blackidyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can come with me and at least let me scan your head for fractures, or I can shoot you somewhere non-lethal and then you'll definitely end up in Medical." </p><p>"You don't like guns." </p><p>Q blows out a breath. "No. I don't. Problem?" </p><p> </p><p>Bond returns from a mission with visible head injuries. Scanning his skull with Q Branch's equipment gives Q a chance to observe the agent up close, but it also gives Bond opportunities to further confound Q.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueprint of an Enigma

**Author's Note:**

> This series is becoming a monster, and I'm (irrationally) happy to let it devour me.

Q has a number of stock phrases to choose from whenever 007 returns from a mission, like he's in some bizarre role-playing game with options for replies. _how did you destroy my equipment this time_ (and variations thereof) is most popular, with _you're injured_ appearing far too frequently for Q's peace of mind. Occasionally, he's required to throw in _you're overdue for psych evaluation_ , because M seems to think Bond will take it better coming from someone unaffiliated with Medical, while the generic _007,_ spoken in different tones, covers the rest of the spectrum.

Q hasn't used _what the hell are you doing here, Bond_ before, his fingers going very still on his keyboard.

"I'm here to turn in my equipment," Bond says, and the slight slur in his speech is a bad sign.

Q flips the head of his desk lamp to the side and directly into Bond’s face; the agent flinches, then stares in a vaguely annoyed fashion in Q’s direction, although Q knows he must be seeing bright after-glares in his vision. Q ignores him, adjusting the flexible neck of the lamp closer, and Bond’s face looks much worse under clear light.

Bond gets stabbed, cut and bruised on a regular basis. He fractures ribs, breaks bones, tears muscles, all par for the course in his line of work. He’s shot at regularly and is, on occasion, hit; he has been drugged with poisons and hallucinogens alike, suffered both torture and interrogations, and yet it’s really the first time that Q has seen Bond’s face a shattered, bruised mess; the world, it seems, prefers to preserve that face and merely wreck the rest of the man instead.

They’ve spared his eyes somehow, although his cheekbones have borne the brunt of whatever blow he’d taken. The bruise that covers his left cheek is a deep blackberry purple in the centre, heavily mottled with dark blue-reds where it stretches under his jaw. His lower lip is split, and from the way Bond’s short hair fluffs up oddly, Q suspects there’s an injury at the side of his head as well.

Q turns the light away, once he’s ascertained that Bond’s eyes are alert and reacting properly, pupils shrunk to thin dark pinpricks in a corona of steely cobalt.  

"You should be in Medical.”

“And you should be at home, sleeping or otherwise, and yet here we are.” He seems to have mastered control of his speech, now, only mumbling them slightly to not aggravate his cheek.

"I can sleep in my office if I have to, and you need to get that looked at.” Q taps his fingers against his keyboard. “What if you have a concussion?"

"I don't."

"How would you know?" 

Bond smiles thinly at him. It looks positively garish, especially when it pulls at the purpling bruise. "Personal experience."

In lieu of responding, Q takes the slim black equipment case and snaps his fingers in front of Bond’s eyes. The man just blinks at him. “Your reaction times are normal for most people, but certainly slower than your averages. Your cheek is a mess and you might have fractured something—” well, likely not, if Bond could still argue with him, but goodness knows what the Double-Os have done to their baseline pain thresholds “—Go to Medical, Bond."

"Or?"

He doesn't even say it defiantly. That's what catches Q every time; Bond is confident and rather mouthy on missions, but back at headquarters he's calm and smooth like a clear pane of glass, and Q can't figure out whether that persona will eventually shatter to pieces or simply fracture into gorgeous, distorted crater patterns, bulletproof but not impervious.

MI6 has had agents go either way before.

Now Bond simply looks at him like he's genuinely expecting Q to give him workable alternatives, head cocked at an angle, waiting.

Done, and done then.

Q locks down his laptop and steps out from behind his workstation, walking a circuit around Bond. There’s the slight goose egg swelling just visible behind his ear and Q resists the urge to prod at it. It looks minor enough, especially compared to Bond’s mess of a face, but Q still crosses his arms over his chest, aiming for the most commanding voice he can manage at ten in the evening.

"You can come with me and at least let me scan your head for fractures, or I can shoot you somewhere non-lethal and then you'll definitely end up in Medical."

"You don't like guns."

Q blows out a breath. "No. I don't. Problem?"

Bond’s head lifts, turning in Q’s direction like a hound scenting prey, but he simply smoothes one hand idly down one sleeve, chasing phantom dust motes. “I’ve been shot before.”

“Yes. But if you’re actively bleeding on my floor, I will have to insist you go to Medical.”

"You wouldn't shoot me."

Q wants very much to believe that that's the head injury speaking, but mumbled voice or not, Bond is studying him with startling clear eyes.

“I’d rather you didn’t kill yourself from sheer stubbornness when you’re not on a mission,” Q says instead.

There’s a long moment of silence where they are at a standstill, then Bond turns and strides fluidly to the entrance. With his face now in shadow, his stance dangerously at ease, Q can almost imagine that they’re having one of their pre-mission meetings, before barbs are exchanged and wounds inflicted.

He’s contemplating whether it’s worth the effort of sealing the lab doors when Bond quips, almost teasingly, “When you ask so prettily, Q, I suppose I’ll have to concede.”

And there’s the patented Bond swagger, all confident suggestiveness in his voice, and it’s like someone’s flipped a switch in Q’s head, a soft quiet little _oh_ at the back of his mind, followed by _in mission mode now, are we_?

Filing the thought away, he picks up his phone and Bond’s equipment case, pitching his voice low so it carries rather than pushing himself to catch up with the Double-O. “Left turn, Bond.”

Bond flicks a look over his shoulder, blue eyes a splash of colour in the bare white corridor. He’d turned the unblemished cheek towards Q. “So we’re staying within Q Branch.”

“Of course.” Q watches for any sign that Bond might be disorientated, by the head wound if not from not looking at where he’s walking, but no. The man moves like a wolf in the comfort of its territory, completely at ease and utterly uncaring of all the obstacles that impede other people’s way. "Bond. I'm not a medical expert. If I find something serious, you need to get professional medical attention."

"Define serious."

“If I can detect it, it’s serious. Second exit.”

“Hmm.” Bond turns away. “Duly noted.”

He doesn’t specify which set of instructions he’s noting. As if Q isn’t already familiar with Bond’s tendency to disregard orders.

*

“I didn’t realize you had an image diagnostics department hidden down here,” Bond says as Q steps over the threshold, waking up both the lights and the radiography system with quick switch flicks.

His eyes sweep the room, noting the door across, a detector at one corner of the wall, then settling on the flat workbench, the scanner suspended above on a rolling, rotating arm system. It’s similar to a medical-grade digital x-ray, and while Q Branch uses it on equipment and unidentified packages there’s no reason why it can’t scan bones.

“When I said I’ll scan your head, I really do mean I’d scan your head.” Q ducks into the adjoining processing room to drop off his phone and the equipment case. He collects the medical kit from its little cubby in the wall and walks back into the radiography room to find Bond waging a staring contest with scanner.

Q breaks the seal on a cold pack and throws it at Bond, before pointing at the bench. “Sit.”

He ignores Bond completely after that, going to the scanner’s docking-station to fiddle with the settings, pulling up the manual on the attached tablet. Turning his back on Bond makes the back of his neck prickle, the hyper-awareness of knowing he’s being watched, and looking up the safe level of radiation for a human x-ray helps distract him from that.

He’s become far too used to being the eyes and voice from afar, unseen and in control. Bond’s not the only one who finds assurance in work, from concentrating solely on the assigned task at hand. 

“I’ll take clean profile shots, and close ups of your cheek and that injury on the side of your head,” Q says, inputting the new settings. “That should cover all potential injuries.”

“You do realize that this is at least a day old. I woud have noticed anything critical by now.”

Bond’s voice is closer than Q expects, and Q changes the instinctive flinch into a smooth turn, moving to face him rather than away. It puts him well into Bond’s personal space, the agent glancing slightly down at him, his expression half-hidden by the cold pack against his cheek. 

“Because you have such a good track record with managing your health,” Q says dryly.

Bond’s lopsided smirk is no less self-mocking for being only half there. “Ordinary work-related hazard.”

The system beeps the completion of its warm up and Q reaches out to grab for the handle, the scanner moving with barely a whisper of rolling wheels and well-oiled joints. “Indulge me, 007. Twenty minutes of your time, and then you can go if you truly need to.”  

Q tilts his head just a fraction to the side to make up for the single inch of height Bond has on him, refusing to lift his chin. He doesn’t consider taking a step back, as if the physical movement would translate to mentally conceding his standpoint.

Bracing his free arm on the workbench, Bond barely has to boost himself upward to settle on the flat surface. “Only twenty minutes? Medical should hire you. They take notoriously long with everything.”

The grin that stretches across Q’s face feels Cheshire-like. “No one continues to accuse me of inefficiency after their initial misjudgement.” Maneuvering the scanner into position, he skims a glance at Bond to see if his barb has met its target, and from the steady silent way Bond is gazing back at him, utterly unapologetic, it has.

One for Q, then.

*

They get through three x-rays before Bond’s innate aversion to idleness kicks in.

Put field agents on a stakeout and they can spend hours in the same position or walking the same circuitous route, minds focused on their targets, but make them sit at rest in the safety of headquarters and they’re practically vibrating out of their skins with enforced inactivity, each and every one of them. To Bond’s credit (and to Q’s exasperation), Bond remains still, the restless energy kept carefully leashed, until the moment he deliberately decides not to cooperate.

“Did you ever crack the hard drives I braved cormorants and surveillance to bring back?” Bond says, right in the middle of a scan, and that image is going to come out blurry, Q just knows it.

He steps forward to tap the scanner and aims a hard look at Bond. When Bond stays in position, Q starts up the system, and waits for it to begin running before answering.

“Yes, I did,” he says, and continues on; if he’s speaking, it means Bond isn’t. “The targets you eliminated have a more widespread network than we expected. There’s good information on those hard drives – nothing we couldn't do without, but it certainly shortened our lead time on bringing down the syndicate. We didn’t find anything on your level, though; Tanner assigned standard field agents for that.”

Sixty percent complete. Q holds up a finger, a wordless sign to stay still. “It was good information, yes, but it still doesn’t mean you’re allowed to go off-assignment or off-radar, or destroy your equipment in the process. Those are expensive, Bond. There’s prototype tech in those communicators.”

“It’s interesting,” Bond breaks in smoothly, “that I’ve lost or damaged quite a few other things since and yet you keep coming back to that one communicator.”

Of course the system beeps, the scan complete, the moment Bond finishes speaking.

“You brought up the cormorants,” Q points out. “All the technology I designed into that earpiece and a fishing bird foils it.”

“If it’s any consolation, I did go on the next few missions armed only with a mobile phone and a gun.”

Q remembers. His second had been the one to collect the hard drives and the remainder of Bond’s kit, and Q had been with another Double-O when Bond left on his next mission. The only major consequences of that particular mission was that Q had slept for fourteen hours straight after tracking Bond to his retrieval point and woke up to find Riley had pre-emptively applied him another day’s leave after that, and that he’d added a few more (somewhat critical and rather cryptic) data points to the mental file he has on Bond.

It isn’t like Bond acted any differently afterward.

He loads the new scan on the system’s corresponding tablet screen, and sure enough, smoky grey-white wisps frame the usually clean cut bone outlines at the bottom third of the image.

Q touches his glasses lightly and peers over the tablet at Bond, watching him in turn. 

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“I do everything with purpose,” Bond says, cool, unruffled, matter of fact. It’s amazing how much he manages to infuse into his expression while barely moving his features, especially with the attention-snaring bruise marring his face. The cold pack he applies to his cheek in between scans numbs the skin and muscles and turns the surrounding healthier skin pink with cold, which only makes the dark discoloration stand out all the more.

Q pulls back a sleeve, turning his wrist inward to read the time off the face of his watch. “If you keep ruining the scans, we’ll going to go over that twenty minute mark.”

“It’s tedious to stay both quiet and unmoving.” Bond turns to track Q as he heads back to the workbench, his injured cheek angled away from the scanner. “This injury isn’t exactly life-threatening.”

“It’ll affect your training schedule if you don’t get cleared. Good luck getting the weapons masters to let you in the range or training rooms.”

Bond’s half-smile is dangerous and contemplative at the same time. “There are the other Double-Os.” 

Q pauses, considering the idea - how each of the other Double-Os might successfully disable Bond, projected from what he knows of their profiles. Then he flips the scenario around, sifting through the factors Bond’s known to be vulnerable to—

And then he pivots neatly, letting his shoulders telegraph his movements, and reaches out to lightly clasp the uninjured side of Bond’s head. Bond’s eyes dart forward to meet his immediately, although he doesn’t move an inch.

“Settle down,” Q says, letting his fingers curl to follow the contour of Bond’s skull, keeping his touch light, “and we’ll get through this faster.”

Quite a number of the female staff at Q Branch (and one very quiet, very watchful male communications officer) have swooned over Bond’s eyes, but Q wagers they’ve never seen Bond like this, the way the thoughts going through the Double-O’s head subtly changes the hue of his eyes. Q understands the science behind it – different light conditions, or the way the pupils contract or facial muscles move – but it doesn’t make the colour change any less striking.

Bond’s eyes go dark between one blink and another, and gone is the suave lady’s man, the agent on a mission with polished corners. Q’s looking at what he suspects is Bond’s base character, the person he’s most like at the core. He’s met him before, once, at the National Museum: quiet and still and dangerously unreadable in the weeks after the former M’s death.

“No longer provoking me, are you?” Q says succinctly, and presses two fingers against Bond’s jaw, tilting his head to face the scanner. “It doesn’t work on Medical staff either, so you’d better go placidly for your psychological evaluation.”

Bond gives a quiet rumble of displeasure, but stays still when Q presses just a fraction harder in warning. Q pulls back, and they both remain quiet as the scanner runs.

The scanner beeps and the silence that follows after is weighted with the unsaid. Bond shifts, lifting his shoulders and straightening his back until his spine pops. “What I’d do for a drink right now,” he mutters, and pins Q with a stare. “Well?”  

Q feels a slight smile tugging at his lips, and he checks the scan – a clear, crisp image.  

“For the record,” Bond says, “not even half of the active agents here can claim to have passed their psych evaluation.”

“I’m only reminding you because M’s office sent an official memo asking me to repeat the directive to all Double-Os.”

“For someone so insistent I head to Medical, you sound remarkably blasé about psych evaluations.”

Q lifts a hand experimentally, and Bond simply blinks at him. Carefully, he brushes a hand through Bond’s hair to feel for the goose bump. “The initial psych profile aside, they’re pointless for us, don't you think?” he says slowly. “We know too much about the procedures and it isn’t hard to figure out what the psychiatrists want to hear.” He maps the circumference of the swelling with his fingers, then pulls the scanner around.

Bond turns obligingly, suspiciously docile. “Now you’re making me curious on how your evaluation sessions go, Quartermaster.”

Q is careful to keep his voice evenly bland. “They proceed perfectly well, thank you.”

(And if he spins particular details into an entirely different story when it comes to parts of his background, well, he’s a designer at heart – he takes aspects and characteristics of things and reengineers them into something new. Code or words, it makes little difference.)

Bond puts out a hand to block the scanner, studying Q from the corners of his eyes. “So you don’t find the reports from the evaluations important.”

“Not… exactly.” Q nods his head towards the scanner and stares Bond down until he settles back into position. “Those sessions – they're subjective; far too open to interpretation and interviewer biases. And all of us are a little too good at obscuration; it's second nature to you agents. I like data. Solid facts and details."

"Going to save my x-rays, then?"

Q’s not even going to try figuring out Bond’s expression this time.

"I doubt a few static scans of your skull can convey even an inch of your propensity to drive Q Branch and MI6 mad." Q taps Bond’s shoulder in a silent cue to sit still, then steps back out of direct radiation line before thumbing the system back online. "No, I'll simply continue as I always have." 

Bond waits for the scanner to take its images and beep before pulling automatically back. “And what have you always done?”

“Observe. Compile facts. And string them together into reasonable inferences. Or at least, I try to.” He peers at the tablet monitor, reaching out a hand to maximize the images. “I think we have enough scans. I’ll need to take a look on them on a bigger screen to see if they’re clear, though; it shouldn’t take long.”

He turns at the soft rustle of clothing, the quiet hiss of moving machinery as Bond pushes the scanner back to rest position and slips to his feet.

“Bond. You will stay.” Q intends it as a statement, says it in the tone of a command, but there’s undoubtedly a question embedded in it. It would be the height of foolishness to believe words could bind a Double-O; it’s why Q’s methods all involve tracing them after they’ve jumped the line, and aiding them in terms of equipment and information so they can bring themselves back.

Even if – as the little slivers of insight Bond has allowed him suggests – Bond seems to give some of Q’s words more weight than they merit.  

Bond presses the cold pack back to his cheek, although it doesn’t hide the scowl he’s trying hard not to pull. “Surely you don’t expect me to just sit here like a puppet with cut strings?”

Q spends a moment contemplating how dangerous a bored Double-O agent in pain might be and detaches the tablet from its frame, running a quick encryption on the device before connecting it passively to the central screen in Q Branch’s main observation lab. He flips the tablet around and angles it toward Bond.

“Here. You can monitor my latest program.”

“Scintillating.” He stares down the representation of a network and its systems and the blur of blue and red codes running in the background. “What am I looking at?”

“I reversed-engineered Silva’s hacking code to identify the vulnerabilities in our system. That—“ Q indicates the tablet with a tip of his head “—will patch those security breaches and safeguard us from further attacks along the same line. In theory, anyway. I’ve set Silva’s code on a private, isolated network and I’m running the program to test its efficiency. Keep an eye on it, will you? You figured out Silva’s key last time.”

Bond’s face goes neutral, almost too unnaturally neutral, but he takes the tablet. “Fine.”

Q nods once, and ducks quickly into the adjoining room. Settling behind a keyboard is a pleasure, and it only takes Q half a dozen commands to pull up the scans, throwing them up onto the large screens lining the opposite side of the processing room.

“Oh, look at that,” Q breathes, momentarily forgetting himself, stepping back to take in the entirety of sight before him. There they are, the elegant curves of Bond’s skull – a veritable blueprint of the human intellectual centre. It’s amazing what a difference viewing the scans on a wide screen can make; there are the details he missed on the tablet, the history one can read in the marks and healed lines on the bone, if they had that knowledge. Q deals with technology – the physical equipment for it and the abstract driving it – so he can’t, but that doesn’t make it any less fascinating. It’s how a literary connoisseur, Q imagines, might view a prized tome of unfathomable ancient languages.

The x-rays look clean enough, outlines sharp and well defined. Medical doesn’t sleep either, and Q thinks for a few seconds before sending the scans off to his favourite medic, the one he drives around the bend by being disgustingly healthy despite living a distinctively less-than-healthy lifestyle, cloistered indoors without “fresh air, natural lighting and the influence of ordinary, sane people.”

It only takes a minute for his phone to ping with a message.

 _For pity’s sake, Quartermaster, can’t you order your staff down here like a normal superior would?_ _Whose poor skull am I staring at?_

_A key personnel who objects vehemently to your department, I’m afraid._

He can feel disapproval radiating off his screen at the response. _CT or MRI are better for head injuries_.

 _If only that were so easy,_ Q writes back. _Status?_

They have a standing agreement, Q Branch and Medical, at least between their respective heads. Q helped implement a communications system that works even in the sealed corners of Medical without interfering with sensitive medical equipment, and Medical staff aid Q Branch as consultants when they design weapons to incapacitate targets in very specific ways. And – at least amongst the medics Q openly brokered the agreement with – it lets Q call in favours, and vice versa.   

Navigating the different divisions of MI6 is cutthroat business, but well worth the rewards when successful. 

 _Evidence of previous injuries present, several healed fractures especially along the cranium,_ finally comes the reply. _In light of those scars, I’d prefer a full CT scan. But the x-rays look clean of new injuries – no breaks, no new fractures. Have the patient monitored, look for warning signs – nausea, blurred vision, dizziness etc. You know the procedure. Get back to me in the morning._

Q’s not sure how he’s going to check in on Bond the next morning – or whether the man even has someone who can keep an eye on him – but his shoulders relax, the tension he hadn’t quite been aware of loosening. _Thank you_.

He expects a responding message, a reminder of the current score. He doesn’t expect the message he actually does receive.

_That’s not a Q Branch personnel. A field agent, and you don’t coddle agents. Someone important, then._

Q feels his heart seize in the centre of his chest, a completely irrational reaction that baffles him the moment it passes. He blinks down at the stark words in the glow of his phone, and barely types out _what do you mea—_ when the next message comes through.

 _Have a good night, Quartermaster. I’ll collect next week._  

He lets his hand fall – she’ll have logged off now, assuming he wouldn’t call in again tonight – his eyes immediately fixing themselves on the x-ray scans.

Q doesn't treat 007 any differently from the rest of the Double-O agents. They each have their own quirks and Q acquiesces with their preferences accordingly - 004 is a morning bird so Q does her briefings then, while 0010 shares a like love of tea, so they meet at different cafes when Q needs to arm the agent outside of headquarters.

Of course, Q doesn't go around promising (albeit inadvertently) all the Double-Os that he'll track them down to whatever hellhole they end up stranded in during the course of their missions. He'll do his utmost for any of them, it's his job and they deserve someone watching their backs, but—

He doesn’t go around forcing medical checkups on all of them, either.

(and the other Double-Os don’t wordlessly accept his word, don’t let themselves get cajoled into letting a non-medical personnel poke around their heads, so to speak).  

Q stares at the scans, wondering again what the medics see, and hopes they feel the same vaguely awed frustration he’s currently feeling when they look upon the codes of his programs.

Swinging to his feet, Q sends the x-rays to Bond’s account – let the man handle his own files – and removes the scans, then goes resolutely through the door to the radiography room before his mind can catch up with him.

He’s caught Bond off guard as well; oh, he swipes the tablet clear quick enough, but Q only needs a bare second’s glance at the screen to recognize that particular interface. The view greets him every time he logs into Q-net, after all.

“Did you just try to hack my security clearance from that tablet?” Q asks incredulously.

Bond is all long lines, leaning casually against the edge of the workbench. “Now why would you think that?”

“It’s on your record, just how many times you broke into the former M’s personal system at the beginning of your Double-O career.” A quick search from his phone confirms that all his firewalls and security protocols are still in place, although Bond’s gotten his hands on a widget that disabled Q’s warning system.  

Bond shrugs. “It was a good opportunity. Seemed a shame not to exploit it.” He has the gall to smile at Q. “You’re not going to give me another opening now, obviously.”

Design a technological leash, Q reminds himself, and maybe a shock collar. Double-O agents are almost more trouble than they’re worth.

Bond stands up, pressing the tablet into Q’s hands before sweeping past him into the processing room, settling down in one of the armchairs with a sigh. “Well?” He gestures at his bruised cheek. “What’s the verdict?”

Q, vindictively, takes his time shutting down the radiography system and switching off the lights until he can feel Bond’s stare boring into his back.  

“Clean,” he finally gives in. “Mostly. Since there isn’t anything critical or life-threatening and you refuse to go to Medical short of such an injury, I suppose over-the-counter medication should be fine for now.” He retrieves a clear pill-bottle of painkillers from the medical kit and spills two into his palm, but curls his fingers over them protectively. “Any prior adverse reactions when you’ve had head injuries?”

Bond arches his right eyebrow at him without pulling bruised and puffed up muscles somehow, the look expressing his sentiments eloquently, and Q just drops the pills in Bond’s open hand, handing him a sealed bottle of water as well.

“Half an hour for the painkillers to kick in, and then you can go.”

Bond swallows the pills. “Are you going to sit there and stare at my face as it heals, then?” he asks dryly.

Q wants to check on his program, but he’s not accessing that again with Bond watching his every keystroke like a hawk. “I can examine the shattered pieces of your equipment just as easily here as I can at my workstation," Q says instead. 

The armchair makes a whine of protest when Bond abruptly shifts. "About that—" Bond cuts himself off, and it’s so uncharacteristic of what Q knows of him that he turns around to stare. “No. Carry on.” 

“It’s that bad.” Q’s voice sounds flat even to his own ears; Q Branch is always going to lose equipment, to wear and time if not to outright breakage during an assignment, but Q doesn’t take their destruction lightly.

Bond doesn’t say anything.

Q shoots him a sideways look before snapping the black equipment case open.

The entirety of Bond’s kit is there, the different devices in their padded grooves. Even at a cursory glance Q can see the signs of use on them, but they’re all there, and they’re all in one piece. 

Q runs a preliminary check on autopilot, lifting each item for a quick inspection, and then he packs everything back and slides the case close, resting one hand on its matte surface.

And then he turns to meet Bond’s gaze.

"Listen."

Bond’s eyebrows furrow. "I always listen—"

"Shut up," Q tells him, and continues right over his words. "When I said to at least return in one piece if you couldn't bring back my equipment, I didn't mean that the opposite applies.” His voice is starting to rise, just a little bit, a nervous habit like the sudden burst of swearing he occasionally falls into. “You can’t come back with injuries like that—“ his eyes flick to Bond’s bruised cheek “—and expect me to believe that there wasn’t a hundred and one ways for you to break, damage or outright lose bits of your kit.”

”One or the other, not both – that’s acceptable,” Bond says. “If I’m in good shape, it doesn’t matter what I have at hand; I’ll make my chances. And if I’m not – well, faultless devices and weapons will keep me alive. So yes, I took extra care of your equipment this time. I also brought the files M wanted back in one piece, if you’re keeping count.”

Q has to take a minute to just breathe because _it doesn’t make any sense_.

For the first time in a long time, he just doesn’t understand. Bond practically lives to disobey orders, but he operates on a strict moral code that he very rarely wavers from. He indulges in the most intimate form of physical connection and more often than not uses that as a weapon, a diversion, a means to an end. He operates best when left to his own devices and yet for reasons Q can’t grasp, Bond takes his words a little closer to heart than most others.

James Bond is a bloody enigma, an unbreakable code, and Q isn’t sure splicing him down to his individual habits and features and motives will help Q uncover the entirety of the man, not anymore.

Q pushes the case away from him and stalks up to Bond, looming over the agent. “Your ongoing streak of recklessness is unacceptable. And I refuse to believe that an agent, much less a Double-O, won’t learn from his mistakes. Try harder.”  

Bond’s eyes are bright blue now, like propane flame. “Is that a directive from the head of Q Branch?”

Q’s hand closes tight around his phone. “Yes,” he says, because that is what he is, and he'd make it an order if he thought it would make a difference.

He doesn’t expect an answer. The agents of MI6 don’t make impossible promises, and Q’s already said his piece. He takes a step back, turning away.

“All right.”

He’s not tired enough to hear things. “…what was that?”

Bond stretches a little, almost lounging back in the chair. He looks no less commanding seated. “Try harder. That’s hardly the hardest thing anyone’s asked of me. It certainly beats half of what M orders me to do. ”

Maybe he’s a little fatigued. Q backs up, sinks gracefully onto his own chair, running his thumb idly over his phone. He says the very first thing that comes to mind. "I'm thinking of applying to Accounts on whether I can take a cut of repair fees from your pay. That only works if you're alive."

Bond raises his eyebrows at him. "Go ahead. Because they’ll never give it to you."

“I can try,” Q says, and wonders why Bond is smirking, just slightly, until he runs through his response again.

Strangely, Q finds himself smiling back. 

*

His phone rings in the silence of his office, and Q turns away from where he’s been staring blankly at his program, his mind on other matters, to answer it.

“Moneypenny.”  

“Q. I got your message.”

"It wasn’t urgent. Bond was just here in Q Branch."

There’s a rather pregnant silence, and then Moneypenny is suddenly all business, her voice going calm and professional. “What has he done now?”

"He doesn't have a concussion or a fractured skull, and doesn’t seem to have broken any facial bones," Q says truthfully.

"... all right. I’m going to assume – because you don’t seem the type to physically roughen anyone up – that it was mission related. How did you get him to go to Medical?”

“I didn’t.” He doesn’t elaborate.

“I see. M is not at headquarters; Bond debriefed with him over the phone.” There’s a soft rustle of moving papers, and the staff of MI6 are truly workaholics with night owl tendencies, aren’t they? “So with your all-clear, equipment and medical-wise, he’s back on the roster.”

“All right.”

“But. What with the not-concussion and not-fractures and all, I think I’ll put him on mandatory leave for a while. He needs to clear a few days, after all.”

Q laughs quietly, because tales of the Double-Os’ reluctance to ever really go off-duty are some of the legends of the agency.

“Q.” Moneypenny hesitates for a moment, and then continues on. “Thank you for watching over the agents.”

There are a number of ways Q could answer. He could say _it’s my job_ , because that’s true, or _you do it too_ because that’s also true, or even _you’re welcome_ to politely end that line of conversation. But because he knows what she truly means, he simply says—

“Yes.”

“Good night, then.”

“And to you,” Q says, and hangs up. 

**Author's Note:**

> A quick disclaimer on the radiography details in this fic - I used internet research and my own experience with having my knee x-rayed with a digital system for most of it. 
> 
> I took artistic license with a few things: the radiologist would most likely not stay in the room during the scans and I really have no idea how many x-rays of the skull is needed (Q likes to be thorough?). Digital x-rays are much safer and use less radiation than conventional x-rays so most of the things in this fic are quite feasible, I think. Plus, Q Branch uses it for weapons, equipment and anything else under the sun! Goodness knows what other modifications they've added to it. 
> 
> If I've gotten anything grossly wrong, please let me know and I'll fix it up!


End file.
